Consumer Watchdog is telling the White House that its cozy relationship with Google is inappropriate, given ongoing reviews by both the FTC and the Department of Justice.

The group, a vocal critic of Google, is asking White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, who is responsible for overseeing ethics policy, “to rule that the president and other members of the administration must distance themselves from Google until the investigations are concluded,” according to a letter delivered to the White House on Friday.

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POLITICO 44

Google is reportedly the subject of an antitrust investigation by the FTC, and Justice is reviewing its $400 million purchase of online advertising firm Admeld. In addition, Justice, the FDA and the Rhode Island U.S. attorney are reportedly looking into allegations that Google profited from selling online ads to illegal online pharmacies.

Despite those ongoing reviews, Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Vice President Marissa Mayer were guests at last month’s State Dinner to honor German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Allowing such executives to hobnob at a gala White House event inevitably sends a message that the administration supports them and undercuts the ability of federal investigators to proceed with their case in a fair and unbiased way,” reads the letter, signed by Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court and Privacy Project Director John Simpson.

Schmidt has been friendly with President Barack Obama for several years, having advised his presidential campaign and transition team and now serving on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The warm relationship between Schmidt and Obama has been called into question before by Google critics who worried the search giant was getting special treatment in certain areas, such as broadband policy.

“Nonetheless, given the current circumstances, the president and top administration officials must distance themselves from Google until the serious allegations against the company are resolved,” the letter said.

Complicating the situation is Google’s refusal to send Schmidt or CEO Larry Page to testify at an upcoming hearing on competition. Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), chairman and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, said they may pursue a subpoena to force one of the Google executives to appear.

Google is in touch with the subcommittee and will “send them the executive who can best answer their questions,” spokeswoman Mistique Cano said Thursday.

Google did not respond to a request for comment on the Consumer Watchdog letter.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 5:38 a.m. on June 24, 2011.

Readers' Comments (19)

Rich Fatcat Dem donors getting special favors from Obozo and his WH is nothing new...its all about the Benjamins with Obozo and the WH. they have been more focused on fundraising for the last 3 years than they have "Pivoting to Jobs". which is still nowhere to be seen.

Ha ha! Tad too late for that, ain't it? Not only has Madam Shillary been pitching hard for Gargle but our executive salesman has been pitching everything else around the world from weapons to credit card. Just like Wall Street taught him.

"On December 13, 2010, the Post ran a story about U.S. gun dealers with “the most traces for firearms recovered by police.” The Post included “the names of the dealers, all from border states, with the most traces from guns recovered in Mexico over the past two years.” The Post did not reveal where it got this information, but pointed out that Congress passed a law in 2003 exempting the trace information maintained by the ATF from public disclosure. So the Post had to have gotten this information through a leak directly from the ATF (or by illegally hacking the ATF’s records, a far-fetched and highly unlikely scenario). Two of the gun dealers the Post’s story assailed were Lone Wolf Trading Co. in Glendale and J&G Sales in Prescott, Ariz. Lone Wolf Trading is number one on the list for Mexican traces; J&G is number three. However, at the time the ATF was apparently leaking this information to the Post, both of these dealers were cooperating with the ATF in the Fast and Furious Operation. When Fox News talked recently to the owner of J&G, Brad DeSaye, about the ATF’s disastrous operation, he said that when he questioned the ATF about whether the agency wanted the gun shop to sell to the cartel front men, the ATF said, “Keep selling.”" (pajamas media)

We were surprised at Pearl Harbor -the next day at Clark Field at the WTC. All of these lost, even though we had suffiecent info to stop our enemies ahead of time.

Is Google to replace Yamomoto now? The coolectivists by any of their names, with their shadow government of czars, their hidden acronyms in every aspect of our lives, collecting data, ready to take the guns, destroy the rest of our economic engine -our energy.

Our families have already been destroyed with leftist anti-God moral corruption, greed, envy, children slaughtered for the sex gods, created crisis de jour.

These things are every bit as deadly and dangerous as Pearl etc.

We have one of the most radical lleftists Gerald Nadler calling Obama a dangerous monarch and our GOP hesitates to impeach this intrasigent arrogant pro-culture of death man. It is not just him, but a long entrenched ideology that loathes free people and their God that gave them that right.

Yet, even as leftist tool - Time mag - deplores the constitution, once again we languish, yawn and sit back enjoying our toys, our hedonistic pleasure pursuits, our free lunches, our deliberately divided nation, as we falter and give away, without a fight, the very freedom that took centuries of fighting to procure.

The Google Investigation is being pushed by Microsoft and Yahoo, among others, that even together can't match Google's numbers, and while Google is very cheap or free.

And since the D.C. corrupt and incompetent "machine" pays billions a year in software to the Microsoft,Oracle and Adobe racket team , and fearing losing the monopoly , they got upset, called the F.T.C. and others and gave them marching orders, and we know who runs D.C.!

If only the American people each had a nickel for every shady/unsavory association of this W.H. maybe food stamps wouldn't be at an all time high.

OF COURSE it is inappropriate for Google execs to be rubbing elbows at a W.H. event while they are simultaneously being investigated by the DOJ. For a W.H. obsessed with optics, it's also a surprisingly daft PR move.

I've had this feel that Google had violated it's Cardinal Business Rule (Do No Evil) the second their CEO was appointed to the transition committee. Can you imagine the screams for blood had Bill Gates or Steve Blamer of the super-evil Micro$oft gotten a seat at the head of the table? Monopolies! Antitrust!

It really disappointed me, I was deluded into thinking Google could follow that rule and do no evil. Sadly I think they've been corrupted by the Dark Side.

Google has a very well written, and "you can't touch us", TOS agreement that ALL advertisers must agree to before their adds will appear. However, once that has been agreed to, and Google starts collecting money from these PPCers, there is no checking up on Google's part.

The internet is ripe with scammers, hackers, and viruses because Google doesn't check or remove them.

Get yourself a really good security software program and be very careful surfing in Google waters. It's loaded with sharks!

Google has robbed the american public of more rights than has the U.S. government. i"s shameful, the collecting of personal data and pretty much free reign worldwide to do and post as they please. Only now have they actually faced a challenge. Contrary to your premise, Microsoft has been investigated, denied and investigated worldwide on every move they have made. Google is too powerful for an individual company and should be dissected as were BellSouth and AT&T.